The widely used cancer drug Avastin may benefit women with ovarian cancer, both those who are newly diagnosed and those in whom the disease has recurred after initial treatment, researchers reported Saturday at a Chicago meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. For ovarian cancers treated early in the course of the disease, the drug reduced the risk of death. For recurrent cancers, the drug delayed progression but the improvement in survival did not quite reach statistical significance, researchers said.

July 25, 2011 | By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times / for the Booster Shots blog

Genetic testing to check if a woman has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations can be a useful tool for preventing breast cancer and ovarian cancer in some cases. But doctors might not be referring patients for such services appropriately, according to a study published Monday in the journal Cancer. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sent out a survey to 3,200 family and internal medicine practitioners and obstetrician/gynecologists across the U.S. They found that physicians may not recommend screening often enough in women at high risk for breast and ovarian cancers (who, guidelines stipulate, generally should be offered such services)

An 18-year study from the National Cancer Institute has found that widespread screening for ovarian cancer doesn't save lives but does set up many women for needless surgery and avoidable complications. The results, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., were not a complete surprise, said study co-author Dr. Christine Berg of the National Cancer Institute. Still, experts are disappointed that yet another attempt to catch cancer early has failed to help patients beat the disease.

Avastin can stabilize tumors in women suffering from advanced-stage ovarian cancer, extending the period before the disease worsens by more than 3.5 months, according to the results of two large, international clinical trials conducted by separate research teams. The findings, published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, come less than a week after the European Commission approved Avastin for treating women newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. The drug, known generically as bevacizumab, has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat ovarian cancer in the U.S. Though Avastin has not been shown to prolong the lives of women with ovarian cancer and does come with significant side effects, it offers some hope for treating what remains the deadliest of gynecologic cancers, researchers said.

Researchers have taken a small but potentially significant step toward early detection of ovarian cancer, a deadly disease often diagnosed too late for effective treatment. Various cancer "biomarkers" show up in blood tests long before symptoms occur but aren't accurately predictive until later, when tumors probably have reached an advanced stage, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found. The study, published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, was headed by Garnet Anderson and Nicole Urban of the Hutchinson center's Division of Public Health Sciences.

July 30, 2013 | By Karen Kaplan, This post has been corrected, as indicated below.

Women, wouldn't you like to know your precise risk of developing breast cancer, ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer? And wouldn't you like to know what changes you could make in your life to reduce that risk? Researchers from the National Cancer Institute would like to help you. They've just published a study in the journal PLOS Medicine that takes a significant step toward that goal. Ruth Pfeiffer , a senior investigator in the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, and colleagues focused on the predictive value of more than a dozen variables, including a woman's body mass index , number of children she has, how long she took birth control pills, whether she used hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause, family history of gynecological cancers, and use of cigarettes and alcohol.

Annual screening with a technique called transvaginal ultrasound, coupled with a blood test for CA125, a protein that can be elevated in the setting of ovarian cancer, does not reliably detect ovarian cancer early, at a more curable stage, a new study finds. "We and other groups confirm that the current method of ovarian screening, which is a combination of ultrasound scans and [blood] markers, is ineffective," said Dr. Emma R. Woodward of Birmingham Women's Hospital in Britain.

Women with early ovarian cancer who receive expert care have a much better chance of surviving than previously thought, the largest study of the disease so far has concluded. Ovarian cancer patients whose tumor is found early apparently can also avoid chemotherapy after surgical removal of their tumors without reducing their chances of survival, the study found. The results "finally give us the handle that we've needed in treating early stage ovarian cancer," said Dr.

To raise funds for research and education, the Ovarian Cancer Coalition of Southern California will hold a 3K-5K run/walk on Sunday at CBS Studio Center, 4024 Radford Ave., Studio City. Registration at 7 a.m.; run at 8:30 a.m.; walk at 9 a.m. $15 preregistration; then $17. (818) 985-0288 or www.ovariancancercalifornia.com.

Ovarian cancer, one of the most deadly forms of the disease, has been fought successfully with an experimental three-drug therapy applied after surgery, researchers said. Based on 60 patients given the three-drug cocktail, 70% were disease-free 22 months after surgery, said Eddie Reed of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. By comparison, previous data showed about half of women who received standard chemotherapy after optimal surgery were disease-free after 18 to 19 months.